There are six bizarre things going on in global markets right now

A bull styrofoam figure is
pictured in front of the DAX board at the Frankfurt stock
exchange September 16, 2008.REUTERS/Alex Grimm

There's a lot of weird stuff going on in global markets right
now.

Nearly seven years after the financial crisis, with interest
rates still at rock-bottom levels and global growth patchy at
best, there are some major oddities. Some are recent, and some
have been bubbling for a long time.

"The first oddity is a loss of control over prices. The best
central bankers can do is export deflation elsewhere, triggering
currency wars."

This is a chart from Bank of England chief economist Andy
Haldane, showing just how inflation is tumbling around the world.
The number of countries registering deflation is climbing, along
with the number registering very low (below 1%) price growth —
inflation above 5% is becoming increasingly rare.

Bank of England

"The second oddity is negative nominal interest rates, a
desperate attempt to prevent fx appreciation but in time a threat
to credit growth"

This bizarre trend is most obvious in eurozone government bond
yields. Much eurozone government debt is now in negative
territory, and actually costing the people holding it money. Even
countries that were considered default threats just three years
ago are seeing incredibly low returns on their debt.

HSBC

"The third oddity is the weakness of world trade growth, which
may reflect more than a whiff of post-crisis protectionism."

World trade growth accelerated significantly in the early years
of the 20th century, with merchandise exports around the world
more than doubling in less than a decade. But after the 2008
crash, there's no sign of a return to a similar pace of growth.
Has trade growth gone back to its previous, much slower expansion
pace?

HSBC

"The fourth oddity, now recognised by Fed, is the ropey nature of
the US recovery, reflecting weak wage growth and energy
production cuts."

The chart below shows Bank of America's US activity surprise
index — which simply shows whether US economic data has been
better or worse than was expected. Right now, the run of negative
surprises has been pretty extended. The index is in the lowest
territory it's seen for five years

Bank of America Merrill Lynch

"The fifth oddity is believing what central banks say they're
going to do. Given BoE, SNB and now the Fed, markets need more
scepticism"

In early summer in 2014, analysts and markets were undecided as
to whether the Fed or Bank of England would hike interest rates
first, and for a while it looked like the BoE would edge it.
Since then, they've backed down considerably and pretty much
nobody believes the UK will raise interest rates first. Could
this sort of move be a challenge to central bank credibility?

HSBC

"The sixth oddity is forecaster bias. Initial consensus forecasts
for US growth since 2000 have been too high in 12 out of 15
occasions"

Forecasts for the US economy's growth have been repeatedly too
optimistic. The consensus has only been too pessimistic three
times since 2000, while there have been 12 occasions on which the
consensus was too optimistic. The UK is a little more balanced,
but forecasts for both Japan and Germany have similarly been too
rosy.